So nearly did this project approach to consummation, that Silenus actually presented himself at Delphi, and put in his claim. But one of the confederates either failed in his courage, or broke down, at the critical moment; so that the hidden records still remained hidden. Yet though Lysander was thus compelled to abandon his plan, nothing was made public about it until after his death. It might probably have succeeded, had he found temple-confederates of proper courage and cunning,—when we consider the profound and habitual deference of the Spartans to Delphi; upon the sanction of which oracle the Lykurgean institutions themselves were mainly understood to rest. And an occasion presently arose, on which the proposed change might have been tried with unusual facility and pertinence; though Lysander himself, having once miscarried, renounced his enterprise, and employed his influence, which continued unabated, in giving the sceptre to another instead of acquiring it for himself,[427]—like Mucian in reference to the emperor Vespasian.
It was apparently about a year after the campaigns in Elis, that king Agis, now an old man, was taken ill at Heræa in Arcadia, and carried back to Sparta, where he shortly afterwards expired. His wife Mimæa had given birth to a son named Leotychides, now a youth about fifteen years of age.[428] But the legitimacy of this youth had always been suspected by Agis, who had pronounced, when the birth of the child was first made known to him, that it could not be his. He had been frightened out of his wife’s bed by the shock of an earthquake, which was construed as a warning from Poseidon, and was held to be a prohibition of intercourse for a certain time; during which interval Leotychides was born. This was one story; another was, that the young prince was the son of Alkibiades, born during the absence of Agis in his command at Dekeleia. On the other hand, it was alleged that Agis, though originally doubtful of the legitimacy of Leotychides, had afterwards retracted his suspicions, and fully recognized him; especially, and with peculiar solemnity, during his last illness.[429] As in the case of Demaratus about a century earlier,[430]—advantage was taken of these doubts by Agesilaus, the younger brother of Agis, powerfully seconded by Lysander, to exclude Leotychides, and occupy the throne himself.
Agesilaus was the son of king Archidamus, not by Lampito the mother of Agis, but by a second wife named Eupolia. He was now at the mature age of forty,[431] and having been brought up without any prospect of becoming king,—at least until very recent times,—had passed through the unmitigated rigor of Spartan drill and training. He was distinguished for all Spartan virtues; exemplary obedience to authority, in the performance of his trying exercises, military as well as civil,—intense emulation, in trying to surpass every competitor,—extraordinary courage, unremitting energy, as well as facility in enduring hardship,—perfect simplicity and frugality in all his personal habits,—extreme sensibility to the opinion of his fellow-citizens. Towards his personal friends or adherents, he was remarkable for fervor of attachment, even for unscrupulous partisanship, with a readiness to use all his influence in screening their injustices or short-comings; while he was comparatively placable and generous in dealing with rivals at home, notwithstanding his eagerness to be first in every sort of competition.[432] His manners were cheerful and popular, and his physiognomy pleasing; though in stature he was not only small but mean, and though he labored under the additional defect of lameness on one leg,[433] which accounts for his constant refusal to suffer his statue to be taken.[434] He was indifferent to money, and exempt from excess of selfish feeling, except in his passion for superiority and power.
In spite of his rank as brother of Agis, Agesilaus had never yet been tried in any military command, though he had probably served in the army either at Dekeleia or in Asia. Much of his character, therefore, lay as yet undisclosed. And his popularity may perhaps have been the greater at the moment when the throne became vacant, inasmuch as, having never been put in a position to excite jealousy, he stood distinguished only for accomplishments, efforts, endurances, and punctual obedience, wherein even the poorest citizens were his competitors on equal terms. Nay, so complete was the self-constraint, and the habit of smothering emotions, generated by a Spartan training, that even the cunning Lysander himself did not at this time know him. He and Agesilaus had been early and intimate friends,[435] both having been placed as boys in the same herd or troop for the purposes of discipline; a strong illustration of the equalizing character of this discipline, since we know that Lysander was of poor parents and condition.[436] He made the mistake of supposing Agesilaus to be of a disposition particularly gentle and manageable; and this was his main inducement for espousing the pretensions of the latter to the throne, after the decease of Agis. Lysander reckoned, if by his means Agesilaus became king, on a great increase of his own influence, and especially on a renewed mission to Asia, if not as ostensible general, at least as real chief under the tutelar headship of the new king.
Accordingly, when the imposing solemnities which always marked the funeral of a king of Sparta were terminated,[437] and the day arrived for installation of a new king, Agesilaus, under the promptings of Lysander, stood forward to contest the legitimacy and the title of Leotychides, and to claim the sceptre for himself,—a true Herakleid, brother of the late king Agis. In the debate, which probably took place not merely before the ephors and the senate but before the assembled citizens besides, Lysander warmly seconded his pretensions. Of this debate unfortunately we are not permitted to know much. We cannot doubt that the mature age and excellent reputation of Agesilaus would count as a great recommendation, when set against an untried youth; and this was probably the real point (since the relationship of both was so near) upon which decision turned;[438] for the legitimacy of Leotychides was positively asseverated by his mother Timæa,[439] and we do not find that the question of paternity was referred to the Delphian oracle, as in the case of Demaratus.
There was, however, one circumstance which stood much in the way of Agesilaus,—his personal deformity. A lame king of Sparta had never yet been known. And if we turn back more than a century to the occurrence of a similar deformity in one of the Battiad princes at Kyrênê,[440] we see the Kyrenians taking it so deeply to heart, that they sent to ask advice from Delphi, and invited over the Mantineian reformer Demônax. Over and above this sentiment of repugnance, too, the gods had specially forewarned Sparta to beware of “a lame reign.” Deiopeithes, a prophet and religious adviser of high reputation, advocated the cause of Leotychides. He produced an ancient oracle, telling Sparta, that “with all her pride she must not suffer a lame reign to impair her stable footing;[441] for if she did so, unexampled suffering and ruinous wars would long beset her.” This prophecy had already been once invoked, about eighty years earlier,[442] but with a very different interpretation. To Grecian leaders, like Themistokles or Lysander, it was an accomplishment of no small value to be able to elude inconvenient texts or intractable religious feelings, by expository ingenuity. And Lysander here raised his voice (as Themistokles had done on the momentous occasion before the battle of Salamis),[443] to combat the professional expositors; contending that by “a lame reign,” the god meant, not a bodily defect in the king,—which might not even be congenital, but might arise from some positive hurt,[444]—but the reign of any king who was not a genuine descendant of Hêraklês.
The influence of Lysander,[445] combined doubtless with a preponderance of sentiment already tending towards Agesilaus, caused this effort of interpretative subtlety to be welcomed as convincing, and led to the nomination of the lame candidate as king. There was, however, a considerable minority, to whom this decision appeared a sin against the gods and a mockery of the oracle. And though the murmurs of such dissentients were kept down by the ability and success of Agesilaus during the first years of his reign; yet when, in his ten last years, calamity and humiliation were poured thickly upon this proud city, the public sentiment came decidedly round to their view. Many a pious Spartan then exclaimed, with feelings of bitter repentance, that the divine word never failed to come true at last,[446] and that Sparta was justly punished for having wilfully shut her eyes to the distinct and merciful warning vouchsafed to her, about the mischiefs of a “lame reign.”[447]
Besides the crown, Agesilaus at the same time acquired the large property left by the late king Agis; an acquisition which enabled him to display his generosity by transferring half of it at once to his maternal relatives,—for the most part poor persons.[448] The popularity acquired by this step was still farther increased by his manner of conducting himself towards the ephors and senate. Between these magistrates and the kings, there was generally a bad understanding. The kings, not having lost the tradition of the plenary power once enjoyed by their ancestors, displayed as much haughty reserve as they dared, towards an authority now become essentially superior to their own. But Agesilaus,—not less from his own preëstablished habits, than from anxiety to make up for the defects of his title,—adopted a line of conduct studiously opposite. He not only took pains to avoid collision with the ephors, but showed marked deference both to their orders and to their persons. He rose from his seat whenever they appeared; he conciliated both ephors and senators by timely presents.[449] By such judicious proceeding, as well as by his exact observance of the laws and customs,[450] he was himself the greatest gainer. Combined with that ability and energy in which he was never deficient, it ensured to him more real power than had ever fallen to the lot of any king of Sparta; power not merely over the military operations abroad which usually fell to the kings,—but also over the policy of the state at home. On the increase and maintenance of that real power, his chief thoughts were concentrated; new dispositions generated by kingship, which had never shown themselves in him before. Despising, like Lysander, both money, luxury, and all the outward show of power,—he exhibited, as a king, an ultra-Spartan simplicity, carried almost to affectation, in diet, clothing, and general habits. But like Lysander also, he delighted in the exercise of dominion through the medium of knots or factions of devoted partisans, whom he rarely scrupled to uphold in all their career of injustice and oppression. Though an amiable man, with no disposition to tyranny, and still less to plunder, for his own benefit,—Agesilaus thus made himself the willing instrument of both, for the benefit of his various coadjutors and friends, whose power and consequence he identified with his own.[451]
At the moment when Agesilaus became king, Sparta was at the maximum of her power, holding nearly all the Grecian towns as subject allies, with or without tribute. She was engaged in the task (as has already been mentioned) of protecting the Asiatic Greeks against the Persian satraps in their neighborhood. And the most interesting portion of the life of Agesilaus consists in the earnestness with which he espoused, and the vigor and ability with which he conducted, this great Pan-hellenic duty. It will be seen that success in his very promising career was intercepted[452] by his bad, factious subservience to partisans, at home and abroad,—by his unmeasured thirst for Spartan omnipotence,—and his indifference or aversion to any generous scheme of combination with the cities dependent on Sparta.
His attention, however, was first called to a dangerous internal conspiracy with which Sparta was threatened. The “lame reign” was as yet less than twelve months old, when Agesilaus, being engaged in sacrificing at one of the established state solemnities, was apprised by the officiating prophet, that the victims exhibited menacing symptoms, portending a conspiracy of the most formidable character. A second sacrifice gave yet worse promise; and on the third, the terrified prophet exclaimed, “Agesilaus, the revelation before us imports that we are actually in the midst of our enemies.” They still continued to sacrifice, but victims were now offered to the averting and preserving gods, with prayers that these latter, by tutelary interposition, would keep off the impending peril. At length, after much repetition, and great difficulty, favorable victims were obtained; the meaning of which was soon made clear. Five days afterwards, an informer came before the ephors, communicating the secret, that a dangerous conspiracy was preparing, organized by a citizen named Kinadon.[453]